do the "obama stimulus haters" and "cut taxes for growth" folks know that approx 275B of it was in the form of tax credits/extensions/reductions/cuts etc?
Yes.
whether it was the reagan era (left with big deficits) or the bush 2 years (left with huge deficits) history tells us and has proven that "trickle down" econiomics does not work.
History does not tell us that, what history tells is us requires a much more sophisticated answer than that.
Here are my thoughts: the general thought process that if businesses grow, the economy will improve is certainly true. Republicans like to blankly label all rich people as job creators, and that is as asinine as painting all rich people as greedy inhumane Gordon Geckos.
CEOs of huge corporations are not
direct job creators, so feel free to raise their taxes. To clarify, if the CEO of Apple makes $10mil, he is not reinvesting any of that money back into the company.
His job is to create a return for investors and job creation is a byproduct, but he doesn't use his personal wealth to do so. He is, however, an indirect job creator in that if he has money cash he is donating more to charities, buying another yacht or car, expanding his kitchen, etc. In that sense we are all indirect job creators.
And if we lower the corporate tax rate and the same huge corporation, e.g. Apple, suddenly has more cash on hand and can more easily expand, it is equally or more likely to expand in other parts of the world. That doesn't behoove the US anyway. If we lower taxes on Apple and they use the capital to build a factory in China...that's simply not a boost to us.
So thus, trickle-down doesn't work.
But, what if we did the same for small businesses? If Joe Schmo Organic Farm has more cash on hand, they are going to expand in this country, and purchase products in this country and hire workers in this country. If Mo's Road Construction operation has more cash, he's doing the same thing too.
23,000,000 small businesses in this country file as individuals. The scenario in which you can make $400,000 and then turn around and pay your taxes, insurance, workers, and reinvestment and take home something like $60,00 all of the time. When I worked with my uncle's road construction crew over the summer, one of the new guys (mid-40's) was saying "Oh man I bet he's rollin' in it. He's probably making $500,000-600,000 a year" which he said simply by looking at the job bids and profit my idiot cousin told him about, when in fact I know it was more like ~$100,000.
Thus in my opinion small business growth is a more appropriate goal of trickle-down and certainly works from what I've seen. But we don't have a federal government that truly cares about that, because small businesses can't lobby as well. We don't have a free market or a truly capitalist system, we have an ugly version of corporatism which promotes economy oligopolies. We've gotten to the point where even in the midst of the "great recession," multi-national corporations are still raking in record profits. They are now largely immune to the economic cluster**** happening in this country.
henry ford had it right...pay your workers so they can buy/afford to buy the cars they were making.
Ehhhh, okay. Another massive simplification. The beauty of capitalism is that you can also make a good so cheap that everyone can afford it. A simple cotton shirt used to actually cost something, now it costs literally nothing to make.
Capitalism has reduced the cost of nearly every good and service since its inception, and where we see prices rise we often see a lack of competition.
e.g. look at this old Best Buy ad:
$1,999 for a 2-GB hard drive and 16MB memory? lololol bring up Best Buy today (I am right now) and you can see a computer for $349 that has 320GB hard drive, and 4096MB memory....and it's laptop so you can carry it around with you.
A 10megapixel digital camera in 2000 cost something like $6,000. Today it is built into your phone. Speaking of phones, my RAZR cost $300 ten months ago, today it is $100. Next year it'll probably be $20 and even the poorest of the poor will have millions of these things.
the income gap (rich getting richer, poor geting poorer) is a structural problem built up over decades starting with reagan and sustained for many reasons with plenty of blame to go around across all party lines. pox on all their houses
I don't believe that the poorer are getting poorer. The last article I read was that in the last thirty years incomes for the poor rose 11%, for the middle class rose 31%, and for the rich is 256%. That is what Karl Marx did say would happen.
But what you're failing to take into account is that the money they have buys products and services that are so astoundingly superior to what they could buy when they were "richer."
There are certainly legitimate complaints about income inequality. But do you trust the same government that is lobbied by them to actually fix it? You're dreaming if you think Obama is hosting $40,000/plate fundraisers only to turn around and legitimately plan on making them poorer. The real way to make America fair again it to get rid of corporatism.
it cannot be solved without strong leaders who are willing to make tough decsions (read: compromise). i have always been a republican but in last 10 yrs or so i have found myself disenchanted iwth my party and our leaders...too much vitriol, hate, division, lack of compromise or willingness to do it coming from our side. teel tale sign was during debates when not one R candiidate said they would raise taxes to compromise on a deficit and spending reduction plan. to not even consider it?
I would agree with this somewhat.
